Smithsonian in uproar over intelligent-design article
Museum researcher's career threatened after he published favorable piece
The career of a prominent researcher at the Smithsonian's National Museum of
Natural History in Washington is in jeopardy after he published a
peer-reviewed article by a leading proponent of intelligent design, an
alternative to evolutionary theory dismissed by the science and education
establishment as a tool of religious conservatives.
Stephen Meyer's article advocates the theory of intelligent design. (Photo
courtesy Discovery Institute)
Richard Sternberg says that although he continues to work in the museum's
Department of Zoology, he has been kicked out of his office and shunned by
colleagues, prompting him to file a complaint with the U.S. Office of
Special Counsel.
Sternberg charges he was subjected to discrimination on the basis of
perceived religious beliefs.
"I'm spending my time trying to figure out how to salvage a scientific
career," Sternberg told David Klinghoffer, a columnist for the Jewish
Forward, who reported the story in the Wall Street Journal.
Sternberg is managing editor of a nominally independent journal published at
the museum, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. His trouble
started when he included in the August issue a review-essay by Stephen
Meyer, who holds a Cambridge University doctorate in the philosophy of
biology.
Hans Sues, the museum's No. 2 senior scientist, denounced Meyer's article in
a widely forwarded e-mail as "unscientific garbage."
According to Sternberg's complaint, which is being investigated, one museum
specialist chided him by saying: "I think you are a religiously motivated
person and you have dragged down the Proceedings because of your religiously
motivated agenda."
Sternberg strongly denies that.
While acknowledging he is a Catholic who attends Mass, he says, "I would
call myself a believer with a lot of questions, about everything. I'm in the
postmodern predicament."
The complaint says the chairman of the Zoology Department, Jonathan
Coddington, called Sternberg's supervisor to look into the matter.
"First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist. She told
him no. Coddington then asked if Sternberg was affiliated with or belonged
to any religious organization. ... He then asked where Sternberg stood
politically; ... he asked, 'Is he a right-winger? What is his political
affiliation?'
The supervisor recounted the conversation to Sternberg, who also quotes her
observing: "There are Christians here, but they keep their heads down."
The complaint, according to the Journal column, says Coddington took away
Sternberg's office, which prevents access to the specimen collections he
needs. Sternberg also was assigned to the close oversight of a curator with
whom he had professional disagreements unrelated to evolution.
"I'm going to be straightforward with you," said Coddington, according to
the complaint. "Yes, you are being singled out."
Meyer's article, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher
Taxonomic Categories," cites mainstream biologists and paleontologists from
schools such as the University of Chicago, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford who
are critical of certain aspects of Darwinism.
Meyer - a fellow at Seattle's Discovery Institute, a leading advocate of
intelligent design - contends supporters of Darwin's theory cannot explain
how so many different animal types sprang into existence during the
relatively short period of Earth history known as the Cambrian explosion.
He argues the Darwinian mechanism would require more time for the necessary
genetic "information" to be generated, and intelligent design offers a
better explanation.
The Journal notes Meyer's piece is the first peer-reviewed article to appear
in a technical biology journal laying out the evidential case for
intelligent design.
The theory holds that the complex features of living organisms, such as an
eye, are better explained by an unspecified designing intelligence than by
random mutation and natural selection.
Klinghoffer notes the Biological Society of Washington released a statement
regretting its association with Meyer's article but did not address its
arguments.
Klinghoffer points out the circularity of the arguments of critics who
insisted intelligent design was unscientific because if had not been put
forward in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
"Now that it has," he wrote, "they argue that it shouldn't have been because
it's unscientific."
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42600
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